SHADY

10.02.11

Koch Brothers Made Sales to Iran

John Chiasson / Getty Images; Peter Kramer / AP Photo

A mammoth investigative report in Bloomberg Markets Magazine has some devastating charges against one of the world’s largest private companies: the billionaire Koch brothers allegedly made a ton of money off sales of petrochemical equipment to Iran. A unit of their company, Koch Industries, dodged the U.S. trade ban using foreign subsidiaries. The company allegedly engaged in illicit payments in Africa, India, and the Middle East, and, from 1999 to 2003, had to pay more than $400 million in fines. The report quotes an employee saying that managers taught them how to steal and cheat. The technique was called the “Koch Method." Koch Industries has denied Bloomberg's report, saying the news service relied on "dishonest sources."